That’s It! I’m Not Going to Comic Con This Year.

According to James Gunn, Marvel Studios will not be attending San Diego Comic Con. Really!?! I’m not saying that Gunn is being untruthful, but I find it hard to believe. That’s like Harvey Weinstein not going to the Academy Awards.

What could Marvel’s reasoning be? SDCC is one week before the North American premiere of Ant-Man; maybe they don’t want to deal with an angry mob. I said it before: It doesn’t matter how well Peyton Reed does, there will be a highly vocal, but small, percentage of the audience that will claim Edgar Wright would have done a better job. Wright could come out and give the film his official stamp of approval, and it won’t matter to some. I have no idea what Wright’s plans were, but maybe someday Jon Schnepp will make a documentary about it, like the one he made for the Tim Burton/Nicolas Cage Superman movie that never got off the ground.

Even if Marvel doesn’t want to deal with a potential Ant-Man backlash, why stay away from SDCC? Maybe it has something to do with Disney having their own fan fest: D23. It would be far easier for Marvel to control the spin at an event of their own design. It is possible that Disney wants fans to attend a con where they will be making the agenda, not to mention the money. At SDCC, most of the studios are there promoting their films, even those that have nothing to do with comic books, science fiction, fantasy, or whatever it is that makes a comic con a comic con. Over the past decade plus, SDCC has become less and less of a comic con, and more of a media con. Every TV series with a “cult” following, or trying to grow one, shows up hoping to get a piece of action. I’m sure that Bravo is trying talk the Real Housewives of McMansion Estates into cosplaying the event. There will even be a special episode where they get into a fight over who gets to be Wonder Woman.

After Ant-Man, the next film on Marvel’s slate is Captain America: Civil War, which will be released in May of next year. You would think that Marvel would want to promote it at this year’s SDCC, but do they really need to? It’s turning into Avengers 2.5 with they casting announcements they made recently. Well, Avengers minus Thor. Poor Chris Hemsworth, the dude can’t catch a break.
That was sarcasm.

The one I really feel bad for is Chris Evans. This is the second Captain America movie in a row that has been hijacked for reasons. The Winter Soldier was supposed to be about Steve discovering that his best friend, Bucky, was still alive, (Spoilers) but it was all about Hydra’s infiltration of S.HI.E.L.D., (Spoilers) which seemed like an attempt to make Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. interesting. But I’ve covered this ground before.

Think about this: Marvel brings the cast of Civil War onto the Hall H stage for a photo op, and suddenly BOOM!!! They get photobombed by Benedict Cumberbatch. That would be awesome. No one would be asking, “Where’s Hemsworth?”

I’m not going to say anything about how Marvel’s decision may have something to do with the likelihood Warner Bros. will show footage from Batman v Superman, and how that will blow up the Internet, for that would be trolling. Never mind that Zack Snyder dropped the mic two years ago when the announcement was made. Forget that last year, one minute of footage from the film caused “The Nerdgasm Heard ‘Round the World.” If fact, forget I even brought it up.

If Marvel doesn’t show up at San Diego Comic Con, it may be because they are going to cede their time to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If there is a film that needs a signal boost, it’s that one.